


Snow-Blind

by poolsidescientist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cancer Arc, Gen, season four
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poolsidescientist/pseuds/poolsidescientist
Summary: Mulder doesn’t come back from Siberia at the end of 'Terma'. Being alone in the basement forces Scully to re-evaluate her life.





	1. Terma

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost, special thanks to @katherinebodine who runs a wonderful tumblr and is beta-reading this. If you notice the quality is better than my other stories it's because of her.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the X-files or any other work of fiction I reference anywhere in the story.
> 
> General Notes: This is my first serious fanfic so all and any advice is appreciated. Thank you for reading.

Overall, Dana Scully was thankful to see the sunlight again. After four days before the senate subcommittee, it was nice to be able to go outside. She was looking forward to a night in her own bed rather than the starched cot of her prison cell. If Mulder were here, he’d make a joke about her time behind bars. If Mulder were here, she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

It was three days into the hearing before Scully admitted her ignorance of agent Mulder’s whereabouts. Word had trickled down that a man matching his description had travelled to Russia using diplomatic papers and that he was travelling with someone whose description matched Krycek’s. Fantastic. Her partner was traveling with a known felon in a part of the world where he did not speak the language but the aforementioned felon probably did. For all she knew, Mulder could be dead in a St. Petersburg dumpster. Of course, if this happened she would be the last to know. Apparently going on vacation with the man who killed your father was not something Mulder considered important enough to tell her about. Even Skinner was horrified when he found out. If Mulder ever did come back, the assistant director was most certainly going to chew him out over his actions. Something she almost looked forward to seeing.

While worried about her partner, Scully mostly felt frustrated and betrayed. Mulder had basically hung her out to dry whether intentionally or not. The rocks from the lab had been stolen and all of their evidence had been destroyed. The one virologist who could have provided them with answers had been assassinated. Scully had no leverage. Nothing she could work with, and no idea what to do now. She was tired of being ditched.

The biscotti dipped in her hazelnut latte had gone soft and its foam was dissolving. Lukewarm but still pleasant to drink. It was good to have a moment to herself. Scully needed the space to breathe. Sitting at a patio table at her favourite café was not something she did often enough. If she closed her eyes she could hear the birds chirp and the sounds of the coffee machines inside and the half dozen or so conversations of the people around her. Normal conversations about life. She needed to have more of those.

“Is this seat taken?” asked a woman walking out onto the patio with a cappuccino. She was blonde and expensively dressed, politely professional. Clearly here on business.

“No, help yourself.” Scully gestured to the empty chair.

“The coffee is good here.” She poured a pack of sugar into her cappuccino and sipped it slowly.

“It is.”

“The atmosphere is nice too. Busy, but not too busy. A good place to think. You look like you have a lot on your mind, agent Scully. At this, Scully raised her eyebrows. She had no idea who this woman was, but after four days in a courtroom she didn’t have the energy to ask any more questions. She still had her gun if need be.

“Who doesn’t these days?” Scully was tired of beating around the bush. “So do you, it seems. Mind telling me about it?”

“Put it this way: agent Mulder isn’t the only person out there who would like to see the truth brought to light.”

“If you know what agent Mulder is up to that would make one of us. He went to Russia and never bothered to tell me why.” At this point Scully was really losing her patience. She was turning into Skinner.

“As you know, an American doctor by the name of Bonita Charne-Sayre was assassinated several days ago.”

“She was a virologist specialising in the variola virus. I know that. I’ve read all her papers. It’s possible she was trying to create a vaccine-”

“She wasn’t the only one doing research agent Scully. The cold war just ended.”

“I see.” Scully took a sip of her latte, it had cooled off but was still drinkable. Her partner’s actions suddenly made a bit more sense to her though it would have been nice to learn of them from him rather than a strange woman in a café. “I haven’t lost faith in him yet.”

“I don’t think you should. I don’t know everything myself, but if you need me I might be able to help you.” The blonde woman handed her a business card. Special representative for the secretary general of the united nations. “We should keep in touch. The cappuccinos are good here.” She flashed Scully a smile. Professional, polite, nearly bordering on genuine.

“I’ll look forward to it.” Scully answered as the blond woman walked off into the crowd. She looked at the card. Marita Covarrubias. Must have been one of Mulder’s informants. The one who gave Mulder those papers to travel to Russia. Whatever he was currently investigating must be important to someone. Either he was deep into something or had gotten himself killed. Either way, it was out of her hands. At least for now.

Playing dumb appeared to be her best option for the time being. She had no idea where Mulder and was frustrated but concerned about his whereabouts. While mostly true, this would be the official story. She would play the abandoned partner left in the dark about everything. There was enough truth in the act for it to be believable. Whatever she learned, she would stay silent about until she had enough evidence to put together a case. Many in the FBI underestimated her and it would be to their detriment.

Nonetheless, she had to tell someone about Mulder’s misadventures. By someone she meant the three musketeers that were the lone gunmen. She would visit them tonight with the news and any relevant information she had managed to dig up. They deserved to know what was happening to their friend. Their tech skills could also prove useful in tracking him down. Scully knew better than to use official channels to find Mulder. Skinner had done enough for them and Pendrell would likely be willing help her but she would rather not drag the young agent into this mess.

For now, Scully knew that higher powers would be keeping their eyes on her. For now, she would lay low and wait for information on Mulder’s activities to come to her. She had no intention of giving the authorities any reasons to shut her down. Bide her time until Mulder either returned or was found. Everything was going to have to be by the book. Take things one step at a time. It was what she was going to have to do in order to combat a conspiracy that was clearly larger than her and Mulder. Scully had a job and she intended to do it to the best of her abilities. For now, she would run the X-Files division by herself.


	2. Paper Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. @katherinebodine is still an excellent beta reader. As always I do not own anything and as always I am always taking comments and suggestions.

Scully stood up defensively as Skinner called her into his office. She had no idea why he had asked for this meeting but she had a feeling that it was important. If Skinner wanted her to give up the X-files he would have to pry them out of her cold, dead hands.

“Thank you for coming agent Scully. Please, sit down,” Skinner said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

“Is everything alright sir?” Scully asked, noting that Skinner looked slightly grimmer than usual.

“Agent Scully, are you familiar with a serial killer named John Lee Roche?”

At this, that, Scully breathed a huge sigh of relief. This meeting was about a case rather than Mulder’s whereabouts. “The name sounds vaguely familiar. I think Mulder might have mentioned him.”

“He was a serial killer in the 1980s, responsible for the deaths of 13 young girls. Or so we thought until last night. As a result of construction in the area, a 14th body was discovered in a park in Manassas, Virginia. There was a heart-shaped hole in the fabric of her nightgown so we suspect she was likely one of his victims. The girl’s name was Addie Sparks. She died in 1975.”

“Has the family been informed?”

“Actually, agent Scully, that’s why I called you in today. It was Mulder who profiled Roche and was eventually responsible for his capture. Normally he would be the one to inform the family, but seeing as he is still missing-”

“If you don’t mind me asking sir, would it not make more sense to send Mulder’s former supervising officer to do so?” Scully interrupted. She would rather not be the bearer of bad news.

“Agent Mulder’s supervising officer at the time was Reggie Purdue.”

“I understand.” Scully remembered agent Purdue as one of Mulder’s few friends in the Bureau. The man who grieved his wife and wanted to write a mystery novel. Someone she could ask for advice were he still alive.

“All the details should be in here.” Skinner handed her a file, and added “it’s not a long drive, so you should be able to get this done by the end of the day.” With that Scully nodded soberly and walked out of the office.

 

…………………..……………

 

 

It felt like an eternity for Mr. Sparks before Mr. Sparks came to answer the door.

“Hello?” he asked hoarsely.

“Hello Mr. Sparks. My name is special agent Dana Scully, I’m with the FBI. Can I come in?” Silently, he let her in. He made coffee for them. They sat and drank for several minutes before she said the words he already knew she would say.

“You found my daughter.” It was equal parts question and statement.

“We did sir. Her remains were found buried in a park. They had been buried there since 1975. Is your wife here Mr. Sparks?”

“No, she passed on. If anything she’s the lucky one, got to see Addie again before I did.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Sparks.” Scully did her best to apologise, but she could see by looking into his eyes that nothing could ease the deep sorrow in the man’s heart. “Her remains are still at the morgue. When you’re ready you can give her a memorial as you see fit to put her to rest.”

“Thank you, agent Scully. I wouldn’t want to have your job. Do you do this often, tell the families terrible news about their loved ones?” Mr. Sparks was tearing up into his coffee. Scully herself was on the verge of tears.

“No, Mr. Sparks, not on a regular basis. Again sir, I would like to extend to you my deepest condolences.” She held his hand gently.

“I always thought knowing was better than not knowing. But at least when you don’t know, you always have that last shred of hope.”

“If you need anything Mr. Sparks, I’ll give you my card and you can call me. Whatever it is, I’ll listen and do what I can.” Scully got up from her chair and pulled a business card from her jacket pocket. Gingerly, he took it from her hands and walked her towards the door.

“Thank you again, agent Scully.” He told her as he opened the door.

“I just wish there was something I could have done.” She didn’t feel like she’d done him any favours.

 

…………………….

 

Scully rolled down the driver’s side window in her Ford Taurus on her drive back from Mr. Spark’s house. Her head ached. The stack of empty coffee cups in the passenger’s seat were likely the cause. As a medical doctor she knew better than to consume so much caffeine on an empty stomach. It would not kill her to eat breakfast more often and stock up on herbal tea.

Mulder was an excellent profiler. Scully always knew that in the abstract sense, but she was feeling it more in his absence. If he were here, he would probably look for more victims and, judging by the age of Roche’s victims, somehow connect the case to his sister Samantha. Neither Mulder sibling was with her right now, and she feared they’d reunite before she ever saw her partner again.

It was eerily silent in the car. Scully turned on the radio for some distraction. An old Leonard Cohen song played, ‘Sisters of Mercy’ if she remembered correctly. While she wasn’t a big listener of folk music, Mulder was a huge fan of the Montreal poet. As a result, she ended up well versed in his music. It was comforting to hear his voice through the car’s terrible speakers.

 

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.

They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.

And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.

Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control.

It begins with your family, but soon it comes around to your soul.

Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned:

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

 

The sun was setting. It was a disturbing beautiful sunset for such a terrible day. It seemed like melancholy would be the order of the evening. Scully had half a bottle of white wine in the fridge with her name on it once she got home. She had a lot on her mind.

 

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.

They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn

they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. Her work was done for now, at least. And poor Frank Sparks had gotten his terrible answers about his daughter’s fate. She couldn’t imagine what he must be going through right now. She couldn’t bring herself to.

 

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon.

Don't turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon.

And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right,

We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right.

 

She hoped from the bottom of her heart that she wouldn’t have a law enforcement officer come to her door in twenty years to tell her how Mulder died. Mulder was still out there. He was still alive. He had to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Leonard Cohen and had to incorporate one of his songs in at some point considering his recent passing.


	3. El Mundo Gira

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual I do not own this series. Have been busy lately due to preparing for grad school so updates may slow down. Thanks again to my beta writer @katherinebodine.

Aspergillus. The infamous Chupacabra of the San Joaquin valley was actually the result of a common fungal genus. At least that’s what the lab results showed.

While fungal infections were run of the mill, Scully had never seen anything quite like the case of Maria Dorantes. The initial police report had stated that the flesh around her nose and mouth had been eaten away, but when Scully opened the body bag in the morgue, the corpse was in an advanced stage of decomposition. Everything was covered in mold. Many species of Aspergillus were fast-growing, but this level of proliferation was unprecedented even under ideal growing conditions.

She had sent a sample of the fungus to a mycologist for more information. As far as the toxicology reports went, Maria Dorantes had high levels of pesticides in her body, which was a frequent occurrence among migrant workers. Maria Dorantes would not have had the best access to medical care. It was highly likely her immune system was ravaged by the pesticides in her body, and if she had a pre-existing medical condition, the fungus could have acted as an opportunistic pathogen. Aside from the dead goats, she appeared to be its only human victim. The lightning and yellow rain at the time of her death indicated a damp environment, ideal for fungal growth. The yellow rain could have come from various industrial or geographical sources. Overall, Scully hypothesised that Maria Dorantes had severe immunodeficiencies and that it was unlikely for there to be other victims in the future.

Nonetheless, in the small chance that the species of Aspergillus was particularly infectious or drug resistant, the mycologist would be able to determine the specifics and alert the CDC to prevent it from spreading. While not supernatural by any means, this was not the cut and dried murder case the FBI had initially deemed it when the file came upon her-or rather Mulder’s- desk.

It was still Mulder’s desk. It was still Mulder’s office. Despite having been assigned to the X-Files for several years, she had yet to receive a desk or bring personal belongings into the office. In his absence, Scully sat in his chair and had organised the filing cabinets, but the décor had remained more or less untouched. His adult videos had been shipped over to the gunmen for safekeeping, and the sunflower seeds littering his desk had been disposed of, but a visitor to the office would notice few differences. Not that Scully got many visitors in the basement; Skinner, Pendrell, and the janitor were the only ones she could remember. Sometimes she herself still felt like a visitor in that office.

Scully jumped up as the phone rang. “Hello, special agent Dana Scully,” she answered.

“Agent Scully, this is agent Lozano from the INS. About the murder of Maria Dorantes-”

“Sorry agent Lozano, but according to the lab results, Maria Dorantes wasn’t murdered. She died of a fungal infection. It appears to be an isolated case, but I sent a sample of the fungus out to a specialist just to be sure.”

“It’s not an isolated case. There’s been another death. The man initially accused of the murder, Eladio Buente, he escaped a truck sending him back to Mexico. That truck driver is dead.”

“Does it appear to be a murder?”

“No, it looks like a fungal infection.”

“Okay, bring me a sample of the fungus and I can send it off to a specialist. We might have an emerging pathogen on our hands.”

………………………………

 

“What we have here is a sample of the Trichophyton fungus that killed your driver. Just your run of the mill, athlete’s foot causing mold.” The mycologist looked almost gleefully at the fungal sample.

“I see. So it’s a different genus of fungi than the one that killed Maria Dorantes.”

“Yes, Dr. Scully. But both cases were quite impressive in terms of proliferation. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow. What caused such rapid fungal growth in both victims?”

“Well, I believe I’ve isolated an enzyme but so far I’ve been unable to identify it or its origins.” He pulled a mold-covered petri dish out of the fridge. “Common wood rot.” The mycologist applied a drop of the enzyme to the petri dish. Scully couldn’t help but take a step back as the mold grew rapidly and spread across the desk.

“Thank you, this is important information.” Scully pulled out her phone to call agent Lozano. They had a potential outbreak on their hands.

………………

 

“So you’re saying that Eladio Buente is a carrier for an unknown enzyme?” Agent Lozano asked as they walked down the dark hallway to Gabrielle Buente’s apartment. He had found two more victims: one at a construction site and the other at the grocery store where Ms. Buentes worked.

“Yes. And this enzyme somehow accelerates fungal growth. If this were to get out into a populated area, we could have an epidemic on our hands,” Scully answered. Lozano knocked on the door. A shaken up Gabrielle Buente let them in.

“My cousin, Eladio, he was here.” She cried into agent Lozano’s chest. “I gave him all my money, I had to. He’s not a man anymore, he’s a chupacabra, a monster.” Lozano did his best to comfort the crying woman but she was pretty upset.

“Ms. Buente, do you have any idea where he might have gone?” Scully inquired.

“Mexico,” she took a deep breath, “he said he needed the money to go to Mexico.”

“Any idea how he’s getting to Mexico?” Agent Lozano handed Ms. Buente a tissue from her pocket as she continued to cry.

“He had a truck, I think. I don’t know. His face, he didn’t even look like himself anymore!”

“Thank you for your time ma’am, we’ll do our best to find him.” Scully told her as she left with agent Lozano.

“We’re not going to find him,” Lozano said cynically as they walked back towards the car.

“We have to! The man is a pandemic waiting to happen.” Scully was at her wit’s end.

“If he’s as disfigured as Ms. Buente says, he’s probably going to avoid people. His brother thinks he murdered his girlfriend so he’s probably hiding from him as well.”

“That’s a possibility but we have to inform the authorities about his condition.”

“I’ll let the Mexican government know what they’re dealing with. You write your FBI report and that’s it. Thousands of migrants cross the border every single day. There’s nothing else we can do here.” Both agents got in the car.

“I almost wish there was a goat-sucker.” Scully lamented, rubbing her temples. Her head hurt. Her feet ached. She was frustrated with the lack of resolution on this case. The only thing she knew for certain is that she wasn’t going to eat mushrooms any time soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mycologist in this episode did not understand lab safety. If you're dealing with a fungus in a lab, dangerous or not, you use a biological fume hood. Spores contaminate everything.


	4. Interludes I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt like writing a filler chapter while I wait on my beta writer (I apologize for this chapter's lack of editing). I love speculating what happens in between episodes. Once again I own none of the characters. Feedback is always appreciated.

“Sharon wanted me to give you this.” Skinner passed the hefty box over to Scully’s side of the table. “It’s a coffee cake, the first thing she ever cooked for me and probably what convinced me to marry her.” He smiled at the memory.

“Wow, that is quite the coffee cake. Thank her for me, also, thank you for bringing it. Are you sure she’s okay with us going out for dinner without her?” Scully inquired, stirring her masala tea. She didn’t want to overstep her bounds. She trusted Skinner. As much as she could trust an authority figure.

“Sharon has bible studies tonight; they’re reading through the book of Ephesians. She actually suggested it. For all I complain about the X-files, Sharon jokes that I’ve half-adopted you and Mulder. She worries about me worrying about you. Can’t say I blame her. Between almost getting assassinated, and storing a known fugitive on the balcony only for them to throw someone else off of said balcony, there’s a lot to talk about. Besides, even if my office is bugged, this place certainly isn’t,” Skinner explained.

The Punjab Palace was a small, hole in the wall restaurant with a take-out counter and at most six tables. The clientele was mainly working class, but it was Skinner’s favourite place to go after long days of reading reports, especially ones featuring Mulder’s pedantry. Something Skinner never thought he would miss.

“I never would have found this place. You were right about the lamb curry being excellent.” Scully would have to tell the Lone Gunmen about this restaurant, they would appreciate the take-out. “If Mulder comes back we’ll need to bring him here.”

“Of course, after I officially reprimand him for his recklessness. We’re not the only ones looking for him Scully. That miserable smoking man keeps breathing down my neck trying to threaten me into revealing Mulder’s location. Hell if I know.”

“Huh. So he doesn’t know where Mulder is either.” Scully couldn’t help but smirk at the concept that Mulder had stumbled off somewhere that even the dark underbelly of the US government couldn’t find him. “All I know is that he’s somewhere in Siberia. No one has been able to give me any more information than this. I guess right now ignorance is bliss. You can’t lie about what you don’t know.”

“Do you think he’s in more trouble than usual?” Skinner asked as the waitress brought them their bills.

“I have no idea. He could be hurt, he could be dead, he could be chasing down some lead. You never know with Mulder. His house is clean, his fish are healthy, the office is more organised than ever right now but that’s my doing,” Scully lamented as they paid for their dinner.

“Speaking of the office Agent Scully, thank you for your vigilance and doing everything by the book. The higher ups don’t seem as concerned with the X-Files division and have stopped talking about shutting you down, at least for the moment.”

“Thank you, assistant director. I’ll do my best to keep it that way. They’re bound to drop their guard eventually.”

“Yeah, one of the old toads is bound to gloat sooner or later. Have a good night agent Scully.” Skinner waved at her as he walked out the front door.

“You too, and thank Sharon for me!” Scully picked up the coffee cake, it was way too much for one person. If nothing else, it would be a perfect excuse to have her mother over for tea. Spending time with family would be good for her.


	5. Leonard Betts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :) All feedback is well appreciated. I do not own this series and am not making any profit from this story.

It was times like these when Scully missed Mulder the most. Of course she missed his humour and companionship, but right now it was his height that made her wish he was with her. At 5’2”, digging through the medical waste dumpster was a challenge. Her heels gave her a boost, but it would have been nice to have longer arms. She was digging through the assorted body parts in hopes of finding the severed head of Leonard Betts, formerly an EMT. Betts had been killed when a truck had collided with his ambulance while he was on duty. What made this case an X-File was the fact that his headless body was stolen from the morgue and the perpetrator made it look as though Betts himself had walked out of the morgue.

Body snatching was not an uncommon occurrence, but someone had gone out of their way to specifically steal the body of Leonard Betts from Pittsburg’s Monongahela medical center. Elbow-deep and reeking of formaldehyde, Scully pulled the severed head out of the pit. Mulder would make a snide comment right about now, at this point she would have almost been happy to hear it. Almost.

Scully had to fight not to rub her eyes while preparing Betts’ head for a cranial examination. The fluorescent lights seemed to be bothering her more and more these days. With Mulder gone she had been doing more autopsies than usual, for both X-files and for other agents. It was one of the reasons Skinner was able to convince the higher ups to keep the X-files open. He wanted to know what had happened to Mulder as much as she did. She didn’t trust him completely but he was the closest thing she had to an ally in the FBI.

Scully prepared her scalpel to begin the autopsy of Betts’s head. At least she thought she was until the head opened its eyes and mouth as though it was trying to tell her something. Scully put the head back down and took a step back from it. Post-mortem electrical discharge was not uncommon, but something was definitely going on here.

……………………………….

Leonard Betts was not quite who he appeared to be after all. Using fingerprints collected from his apartment, his identity was matched with one Albert Tanner. A man who had been killed six years earlier in an automobile accident. Unlike Betts who had no living relatives, Mr. Tanner’s mother was still alive. Visiting her brought Scully no new insight into the case. Mrs. Tanner had confirmed that yes, Albert had died in a car accident but that she had not seen him alive since.

How Leonard Betts had managed to live so long was a mystery in and of itself. Slices of his polymerised head revealed that his frontal lobe contained more cancerous masses than functional tissue. The lab had checked several times to make sure it wasn’t a mistake and, sure enough, it was exactly what it looked like. Cancer. Everywhere.

And yet, Betts seemed to have cheated death once again. In the night, Michelle Wilkes, his former partner, had somehow managed to track him down and got a syringeful of potassium chloride for her trouble. Although a security guard had managed to restrain Betts and handcuff him to his car, he escaped. By tearing his thumb off. Now searching through the back of his car, this case felt more and more like some sort of horror movie. The cooler in the trunk of his car did little to ease Scully’s discomfort. Upon opening it, she found it filled with more tumours than an oncology lab. Perhaps Betts’s own cancer somehow caused his fascination with the disease. His partner had previously mentioned that he had a gift for diagnosing it. He was obsessed. An obsession that was proving to be deadly for those who got in his way.

…………………………..

 

Elaine Tanner continued to act like the mother of a serial killer in a horror movie. Upon further investigation, the car Leonard Betts used to store his tumour collection was registered to her. Despite Scully’s questions, she kept going on about how her son was bullied for being ‘different’. Mrs. Tanner even insisted that her son ‘had his reasons’ when presented with his accusations of murder. Scully felt sick. It reminded her of Mrs. Peacock’s attitude towards her sons when she and Mulder investigated those murders in Home, Pennsylvania. She made a mental note to call her own mother and tell her how much she loved her when she got home.

Aside from a lifetime’s supply of iodine, the police found nothing unusual in Elaine Tanner’s house. She let Scully and the law enforcement team search the place to her heart’s content, but to no avail. There were photos and old keepsakes from various stages of her life, but nothing so out of the ordinary as to warrant further investigation. At least not at that house. Scully would have to look further into Albert Tanner himself to gain a better understanding of this case.

Albert Tanner’s personal effects were currently being stored in a storage locker. Scully approached it with caution. She aimed her gun at the locker as she heard noises from inside. Someone was in there. Betts. He tried to drive through the door but the car exploded with him inside as she shot it. He was charred like a hamburger at a cookout that had fallen into the grill. At least in this state he was unlikely to murder anyone else. Or so Scully hoped.

………………………………

For the sake of being thorough, Scully had Albert Tanner’s body exhumed to determine whether or not Betts’ original death was staged. It wasn’t. Biologically, it was the exact same body. There were two Leonard Betts, or two Albert Tanners. Both riddled with cancer. As a medical doctor, Scully was at a loss to explain what she saw in front of her. Even identical twins had different fingerprints. Mulder would have a theory about the extreme possibility of Leonard Betts’ condition. Mulder wasn’t here.

…………………………

“I’m sorry, but you have something I need.” Betts apologised as he locked Scully into the ambulance with him. He stroked her forehead. He was Duane Barry and Donnie Pfaster and Gerry Schnauz. They didn’t kill her and neither would he.

Scully had been staking out the neighbourhood when there had been a 9-1-1 call from Mrs. Tanner’s place. She rode with Betts’ mother to the hospital and found him stowed away on the roof of the ambulance. He had been watching her.

She reached for her gun, he pushed it away. He lunged at her with a scalpel but she dodged. Scully punched him in the face. Betts got up faster than she had anticipated. Eyeing the defibrillator she charged the paddles and pressed them against his head. He collapsed and didn’t get back up. Scully was the last person Leonard Betts would ever try to kill.

…………………….

Unlike her partner, Dana Scully was a heavy sleeper and rarely woke up in the middle of the night. She didn’t take the nightmares of her job home with her on a regular basis. But waking up in the middle of the night to her blood-stained sheets from an uncharacteristic nosebleed. She knew that this time her job had followed her home.


	6. Interludes II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, it's been hectic. More non-filler chapters will be on their way soon. I own nothing except this AU. Feedback is always welcome.

It was another evening without answers. Scully hung up the phone in Mulder’s apartment and sighed. Official channels of investigation had brought her no closer to finding Mulder, so it was time to improvise. She supposed she could contact S.R.S.G. Covarrubias for information, but had a sinking feeling favors from that woman might cost her more than she was willing to pay. Instead, Scully had called up the MUFON women from Allentown whom she had met a year-and-a-half ago. It was going out on a limb, but the women who had claimed to have been abducted by aliens had proven excellent in gathering information on activity they considered to be extraterrestrial. While Scully doubted any of it truly was, she knew that Mulder could potentially be chasing after the same conspiracy theories as them. Perhaps the best way to catch find a UFO nut was through another UFO nut.

Unfortunately, contacting said MUFON members was proving impossible. Every single woman she called from the organisation, from Betsy Hagopian to Peggy Northern, was unreachable. Either their phone lines had been disconnected, or her calls went straight to voicemail. Where had these women gone? Could they have gone to the same place as Mulder?

Scully curled up on Mulder’s couch and surveyed the room. Everything was organised and his fish swam happily in their tank. She probably fed them more regularly than he had. The apartment still felt empty without him. At least it looked empty, the lone gunmen had suggested that Mulder’s apartment might be bugged. If so, whoever was bugging it would notice her presence and trace her phone calls. With any luck, she’d be able to lure those shadowy forces out of the woodwork in order to get a better understanding of what was going on. Skinner told her that the black-lunged bastard and his cronies had no idea where Mulder was, but if they had a better idea of where to look it could be beneficial for her to know. Maybe she knew more than she realised.

Mulder’s couch was ridiculously comfortable. It was no wonder he slept on it. Still, it felt eerie sitting there alone in the apartment. Or not so alone; Scully heard footsteps coming towards the door and watched the door handle turn. She had company. She pulled her gun out and pointed it at the door. The thirty seconds it took for the door to open felt like an eternity.

“Shit Scully, it’s us.” Langly jumped at the sight of Scully’s gun. Frohike hid behind him, and Byers stood off to the side of the door, leaning over to look into the room.

“Sorry guys, I didn’t know who it was.” Scully breathed a huge sigh of relief. She had never been so happy to see the lone gunmen in her life.

“Had you opened that door any faster the next time we’d have seen each other would have been the afterlife,” Frohike complained to Langly.

“Frohike, you’ve watched too much of Mulder’s video collection to go to heaven with the rest of us,”

“Hey!”

“Enough you two, we didn’t come here to argue.” Byers shook his head in frustration.

“Then why did you come here?” asked Scully.

“Well, we needed, we…uh,” Langly stammered.

“We miss Mulder.” Frohike looked as though he were on the verge of tears. Byers put a hand on his shoulder to try and comfort him.

“I miss him too,” Scully admitted, “Come in.”

So they did. Somehow the four of them managed to fit in his living room. Scully told them about MUFON and the lone gunmen vowed to look into them again. Byers told her the story of how they had first met Mulder. Langly ordered them a pizza. Frohike invited Scully to their Dungeons and Dragons tournament. They all missed Mulder, but at least they weren’t alone with their feelings. Wherever Mulder was, he still had friends.


	7. Never Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for sticking with me. Grad school is crazy, it is quite an experience. Thank my beta reader @katherinebodine from tumblr for helping me out and as always these characters do not belong to me. Feedback is always appreciated.

As it turned out, Vsevlod Pudovkin was a garden variety mafia thug. Not that this came as any surprise to Scully. The self-professed underground UFO researcher was clearly an unreliable scumbag, but exactly the sort of unreliable scumbag that Mulder would consider a valuable informant and try to contact. Unfortunately for her, Mulder had not contacted Vsevlod Pudovkin at any point and Scully still had no idea where her partner was. Alive or dead, his location remained a mystery to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In spite of the lack of Mulder sighting, Scully’s investigation had not been a total loss. Skinner had initially raised an eyebrow at her request to follow Pudovkin to Philadelphia, but eventually let her investigate him through the X-Files division. While there were no UFOs or Mulder in sight, she had gathered damning evidence linking him to the Russian mob. Information that she had since sent over to the Philadelphia field office, which would allow them to bring Pudovkin into custody. If he talked, they could learn valuable information about the Russian mafia and therefore make the city a safer place. Aliens or not, the X-Files still had value as they allowed Scully to investigate a range of unusual cases. Oftentimes they had mundane solutions. Crimes were solved, and, even without Mulder, she had enough tangible results from her work to keep Skinner happy and his superiors off his back.

Scully stretched out on her hotel bed. Her work here was done and it was time to go back home. If Mulder were here they would go back to D.C. right away. But Mulder was not here and Scully was tired. She could devote more time to searching for him but was unsure she wanted to devote herself to his crusade. It was her life too, and it wouldn’t kill her to live a little. She thought of Ed, the guy she met at the tattoo parlor while trailing Pudovkin. He had given her his number and she hadn’t gone on a date for several years. It wouldn’t kill her to go for a drink with him before flying back. Scully reached for the phone and dialed his number.

……………………………………..

“So, what is it that you like about this place?” asked Scully, drink in hand as she lounged on one of the bar’s couches.

“I guess everyone here looks like their problems are worse than mine,” Ed confessed. He was tall, handsome, seemed respectable enough but still a stranger. Familiar but different. At this point in Scully’s life, different could be a good thing.

“Maybe Ed, maybe they’re saying the same thing about us.” She looked around at the bar, Hard Eight it was called. The kind of place she would have snuck into as a teenager. “I guess feeling that way is better than feeling alone. Loneliness has a way of sneaking up on you.”

“Bad breakup?” Ed looked at her sympathetically.

“Not exactly, I had a partner at work. One I could trust with my life. No matter what happened, we always had each other’s backs. Then he left, I think he meant to come back but he hasn’t. He hopped on a plane to Russia and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. Nobody has.” Scully took a deep breath as she put down her drink. Where did she even begin to describe her relationship with Mulder?

“Did you love him?”

“Never stopped to think about it, one moment we meet and the next our work has become my entire life. I let myself become complacent, and I was wrong. Everything is so temporary.”

“Well, Dana, sounds like you need another drink,” Ed waved the waitress over and they both ordered another drink. He winced and his arm appeared to be bleeding.

“Ed, your arm!” She reached towards it but he jumped back.

“It’ll be fine, it’s nothing.”

“You sure you don’t want me to take a look at it? I am a medical doctor.”

“It should get better. Everyone gets the tattoo they deserve, right? Something permanent to remind us who we are.”

“Sometimes permanent is a good thing.” Scully gulped down the rest of her drink. She was tired of being cautious.

………………………

The ouroboros was a symbolic representation of the cyclical renewal of life as well as a symbol for infinity. A snake eating it’s own tale, as it went around in circles. As an undergrad, Scully had taken a greek mythology course as she was required to take a non-science elective and nothing else fit with her schedule. She remembered the picture of the ouroboros in her textbook and how the image seemed, even then, to resonate with her. It was complete, eternal, and immortal; entirely self-sufficient. As the tattoo ink burned into her lower back, she hoped it would make her feel a little more self-sufficient. She had always been able to take care of herself, but everything changed once Mulder entered her life. They had a partnership beyond anything she could possibly imagine. And now it was possibly over. She was back to being herself. If she couldn’t find it again she would create it. Everyone got the tattoo they deserved, at least according to the store owner. But what did Scully deserve? And who would she become?

………………………

The snow storm outside had gotten bad so Ed had offered Scully his couch rather than let her venture back to her hotel room in her drunken state. His apartment building was dark and had a fair number of stairs. Still, it was warmer inside than out. It was nice to go somewhere new. She was more than her job. And she liked Ed, he listened to her and made an effort to be considerate. He wasn’t dreadfully boring either. Nor was he ugly. He kissed her as they walked through the door after they had taken off their coats. He was warm in her mouth, a kind of warm she hadn’t felt in ages. She kissed him back. He tasted like cigarettes and escapism.

Under most circumstances, Scully would have excused herself. She would have stepped away and gone back to her hotel room. But Ed’s arms were warm and strong and she was tired of feeling alone. He held her, he kissed her, he wanted her. When was the last time anyone had wanted her like this? Fuck it, Scully thought to herself as his hands wandered under her shirt. More specifically, fuck him.

…………………………..

“Ed, I think we need to go to the hospital,” Scully said with urgency as Ed walked in with coffee and breakfast.

“Hospital?,” he looked both confused and frightened, “is everything alright, Dana?.”

“I don’t know. Listen, some detectives knocked on your door a few minutes ago. They said something about your neighbour having gone missing and that they found blood with ergot in it in her apartment. They think it might be yours-”

“Yeah, I cut myself helping her move in.”

“Listen to me Ed, the blood was found to have ergot in it. Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye, the tattoo artist used rye to produce the red in our tattoos. It contains chemical compounds that have the potential to cause various symptoms including hallucinations. We have to get tested,” Scully insisted. A dark look crossed Ed’s face.

“She talks to me you know, the tattoo, tells me to do things…” he confessed. Scully knew she should be relieved at his confession but something about his words brought back memories of Duane Barry. She took a deep breath. She was an FBI agent and a medical doctor, she would figure this out.

“Okay, I’ll get dressed and meet you out here,” she was still wearing Ed’s shirt from the night before. “We’ll go to the hospital, we can eat on the way. Everything is going to be alright.”

Scully walked into the other room and closed the door behind her. She heard a rustling as she put her clothes on. No sooner had she opened the door than Ed charged at her, banging her against the wall. Scully reached for her gun but he knocked it out of her hands. She managed to kick him in the shin and elbow him in the gut but eventually he bashed her head into the wall and tied her up into a bed sheet.

…………………………..

“This isn’t you Ed, this isn’t you. You need to get to a hospital.” Scully pleaded as he dragged her down to the basement. The furnace glowed threateningly. He looked into the fire then looked at her.

“I can’t, I can’t make her stop!” He cried out, shoving his arm into furnace. Scully ran for it and called 9-1-1. She locked the door and sat with her gun as she waited for the ambulance.

…………………………...

First Leonard Betts and now this, Scully rubbed her aching forehead. She wondered if Krycek had died and nominated her as the universe’s next punching bag. She was not having a good few months. While ergot had been detected in both her and Ed’s blood, there was not enough of it to trigger hallucinations. He had a plain old-fashioned psychotic break, likely brought on by job stress and his recent divorce. Ed Jerse was currently in a burn center, where his arm was being treated. Whether tattoos or aliens, it was frustrating how many men blamed their problems on external sources. It was high time Scully made some new friends. Maybe D&D with the gunmen wasn’t such a bad idea. Whatever the case, she was free to go. Explain things to Skinner. Write her report. Nothing had changed for her. Or so Scully thought until she caught a glimpse of her reflection. Her nose was bleeding again.


	8. Memento Mori I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, school has been hectic and I'm going insane so my writing schedule is erratic at best. Bless my beta reader. I do not own the X-Files as is already known. Feedback of any sort is greatly appreciated.

It stared her right in the face. Clinical, observable, unavoidable. Her destiny. Her death. Dana Scully looked at medical scans on a regular basis, but it was different when they were her own. She examined the mass between her eyes and behind her nasal cavity. Cancer. As a doctor, she knew it was inoperable and nearly impossible to treat. As a patient, well, Scully had no idea how to be a patient. Taking a deep breath she blinked and looked back at the scans. She had no experience being sick.

………………………

“Dana!” Maggie Scully rushed into the hospital room and hugged her daughter tightly, as though she would lose her by letting go. She feared she might.

“Mom, you came,” she answered weakly, not having processed enough of the situation to know how to comfort her mother.

“How could I not? You told me you were sick.”

“I am,” Scully pointed to the scans, “it’s cancer.”

“Dana, I…” Maggie looked horrified at the X-rays. It didn’t take a medical doctor to recognise the tumor.

“Tumors in such a location are incredibly rare and impossible to remove. If-when-it metastasizes into my bloodstream it will spread throughout the body. If the tumor presses into my brain that will also prove fatal. Chemotherapy and radiation are unlikely to do more than prolong the inevitable by a few months,” Scully recited, stopping only once she noticed the tears rolling down her mother’s face. “I’m sorry, I’m a doctor and I don’t even know what to do. It’s not enough,” she felt the fear and disappointment rising in her chest, coming out as hot tears which rolled down her face, “I’m sorry mom, I-”

“I’m glad you told me,” her mother interrupted, passing her a tissue to wipe her face with.

“You’re the first person I’ve told. I wish I knew more, had all the facts. It hasn’t really sunken in yet. I need to figure something out, to get answers.”

“You always do Dana. But please, be careful, you’re my only daughter now,” she pulled Scully into another hug.

“I know mom,” Scully lamented, “I really wish Missy were here, she’d at least have an idea what to say and how to adjust. What I wouldn’t give to be able to call her up, just to talk to her. Especially now,” she pulled back and sighed. Looking her mother’s eyes she saw grief and concern, but also determination and hope.

“I know you miss Melissa, I’m just not ready for you to join her yet. Not before I do.”

……………………....

“I’m so sorry to hear about your illness agent Scully, if there’s anything I can do for you please let me know.” Skinner’s expression softened as he spoke. Scully could tell his concern for her was genuine.

“Thank you assistant director.” Her hands shook slightly as they gripped the back of the chair she couldn’t quite bring herself to sit in. 

“If you wish for time off or to resign for medical reasons that would be entirely understandable.”

“Actually, I would like to examine this cancer in an investigative manner.”

“How so?” Skinner raised an eyebrow. He reminded her so much of her father.

“Previously, Mulder and I had investigated a case that involved a group of women from Allentown Pennsylvania who believed they were abducted by aliens. Personally I do not think this was the case but, whatever it was, these women have all come down with similar pathologies to mine. Whatever the cause, this pattern is highly unusual and thus, I believe, warrants an investigation,” she explained clinically.

“Whatever happened, you certainly have a case. I expect a report on your investigation should you find anything worthwhile.” The ‘thank you for not smoking’ sign caught Scully’s eye as she was about to leave Skinner’s office.

“Sir, do you mind doing me one last favour?”

“What do you have in mind agent Scully?”

“Please keep the matter of my illness confidential.” He looked down at the sign and nodded.

“Of course.”

……………………...

Scully felt unsettled as she pulled into Betsy Hagopian’s driveway. Her last visit here had been less than comforting, but there was a certain solidarity among the MUFON women. A certain sense of hope and acceptance. But that was gone now because Betsy was gone now. Betsy Hagopian had recently passed away, according to the harried real estate agent trying to clean up the place.

It took a bit of convincing and a flash of her official FBI badge, but the real estate agent let her into look through Betsy’s things which were currently being stored down in the basement, which was a mess. The woman’s entire life packed away in shelves in boxes. Scully feared the day her mother would be confronted with this reality. Both her daughters’ lives as a series of objects and documents destined to gather dust and obsolescence. She thought of Mulder’s mother, who Scully had yet to inform of her son’s disappearance. It was a necessary evil she would soon have to face.

It was the ringing of her phone that pulled Scully out of her thoughts. That and the beeping of Betsy Hagopian’s computer. She wasn’t the only person trying to get in it seemed. One hand ready to pull out her gun, she answered the phone.

“Scully.”

“Hello agent Scully. Remember when you asked us to look into the MUFON women?” Byer’s polite voice greeted her.

“Yes, I’m actually at Betsy Hagopian’s house right now. She died not so long ago.”

“We know, they all did. Rare form of nasopharyngeal tumour, every single one of them. Only a woman named Penny Northern is still with us, and she’s currently receiving treatments for her cancer.”

“Do you know what hospital she’s in?”

“Allentown-Bethlehem Medical Center.”

“Thank you, I need to talk to her. Would it be possible to do me one last favour?”

“Anything agent Scully.”

“I need you to trace Betsy Hagopian’s computer. It looks like someone is trying to hack into it right now and I need to know who.”

“Interesting. We’ll get back to you as soon as we figure it out who they are and what they’re trying to do.”

………………………

Her head hurt. Nonetheless, Scully continued to drive. She was almost there, the Allentown-Bethlehem medical center just a few minutes away. Who knew how much time Penny Northern would have left? The sooner Scully got to her the better. Her hands were shaking. Over the course of the day she drank five coffees. Now a stack of paper cups in the cup holder of her car. She was turning into Mulder. Though, truth be told, Mulder would have stopped at a diner or something by now to get some food. He was always hungry. Meanwhile Scully hadn’t eaten since five am in the morning. Half a bagel and cream cheese. Light cream cheese. She had just bought a new container before her cancer diagnosis. All this effort to eat healthy and for what. From now on she was only buying the real stuff.

The hospital parking lot was relatively quiet and finding a spot was no trouble. With any luck the cafeteria would still be open or else Scully would have to get a snack from a vending machine. She felt uncomfortably weak. It had been a difficult day and it didn’t look to be getting easier. She was already overwhelmed and now she had cancer. Not only cancer but one that she as a doctor couldn’t do anything about.

As she walked through the hospital’s sliding doors she noticed how harsh the lights were. Something else she would have to get used to. Spots obscured her vision and she felt wobbly. Scully pushed her hair out of her face and noticed the blood on her hand. Her nose was bleeding again. She looked up but she was seeing more spots. Her head was spinning and she felt like throwing up. The nurse’s station was just in front of her. Just a few steps away. Scully tried to grab a chair but her impaired vision and dizziness caused her to fall over. Everything went numb. Everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided it was easier to split this chapter into two parts. They really jammed a lot in here.


	9. Memento Mori II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update. Grad school is hard, my beta reader and I both have busy lives and I didn't really get a lot of feedback so I focused on other projects for a while. But here we are and hopefully I'll give this story a bit more attention. Thanks for reading and as always I own no part of the X-Files.

The light was a harsh, all-consuming white. It took her a minute for her eyes to adjust. She rubbed them with her hands, noticing an IV in her arm. She was wearing a hospital gown. Scully didn’t remember putting one on. She rolled her shoulders back, feeling stiff and sore. It was tempting to roll over and go back to sleep. She could use about a year of sleep.

Sitting up, Scully noticed a tray of food in front of her. Food. She suddenly remembered how hungry she was. Even the bland-looking hospital food looked appetizing. Greyish chicken and vegetables in a murky brown sauce with what looked like it had once been a potato. She swirled it around on her plate before taking a bite. It was both barely edible and almost delicious. Scully cleaned her plate, as well as finishing the fruit cup and jello also on the tray. Green jello. Florescent green. Mulder would make a joke about alien innards were he here. He would sit by the side of her bed concerned, smiling at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He would hold her hand, and cry, and not leave until he knew she was alright. But she had cancer and Mulder was gone. Scully was alone with her demons. And they were staring her right in the face.

“Ms. Scully,” the nurse called her name as she walked into Scully’s room, “good afternoon, glad to see that you’re awake.” She smiled, looking at Scully’s empty lunch tray.

“Afternoon? What time is it? How long have I been here?”

“It’s two in the afternoon ma’am. You collapsed in the lobby last night.”

“I see.” Scully vaguely remembered the past few days of her life. “Do you have any idea where I would be able to get a coffee? My brain is feeling a bit fuzzy,” Scully asked the nurse who crossed her arms and stared down at her in frustration.

“No coffee for you Ms. Scully. Your body needs to rest. The reason you fainted is because you were exhausted and dehydrated,” she explained.

“Is that all?” Scully raised an eyebrow. She had been certain that it was the cancer which had made her collapse. It appeared that the cause was more mundane than expected.

“We got your files faxed over from Holy Cross Memorial, and we know about your brain tumour. We have a very good doctor here, Dr. Scanlon, who is studying the type of tumour that you have. But you must understand, we cannot treat your cancer if you die of exhaustion first.”

“How about-”

“You need to finish your IV. I will bring you some water to drink. Stay put.” The nurse ordered as she left, coming back in five minutes with a cup of lukewarm water as promised. Scully didn’t touch it but instead itched at the IV in her arm. She really was a terrible patient.

………………………

Finally rid of her IV, Scully tiptoed down the hall until she found Penny Northern’s room. It almost felt foolish going to visit her, to question a dying woman about her own impending death. Still, it would be easier to question a dying woman than a dead one.

“Agent Scully, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” she greeted her, a smile lighting up her gaunt face.

“I know Penny, I’m glad I found you. All those women and you’re the only one left.” Scully forced herself to smile back at her. Penny Northern was clearly ill, maybe even bedbound. Either way she did not appear to have much time left. It was only a matter of time before this happened to her, Scully reminded herself.

“You’re one of us too agent Scully. I remember when we first met, you were so afraid and they let me come to you and comfort you. They took so much time from us and now they’re taking our lives.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t share those memories. The first time I met you was with Betsy Hagopian,” Scully confessed.

“If you’re here it means that you’re dying too. You’re here to see Dr. Scanlon.”

“I’m sorry but I have never heard that name before.”

“Dr. Scanlon is the one who’s been treating us. He says he’s close to finding a cure. It’s too late for Betsy and I but you, you have a chance,” Penny explained hopefully. Scully couldn’t help but be suspicious. As someone who spent much of her life reading medical journals, she was certain that the medical community would have made a fuss had anyone discovered a groundbreaking new cancer treatment. However, it was possible Dr. Scanlon's research was still incomplete and that he didn’t have enough information to publish yet. At some point she would have to investigate him as well.

“Thank you, I’ll have to look into-” Scully’s phone interrupted her. “Sorry I have to take this,” she answered the phone, “Scully”.

“Agent Scully, we found something you might want to see,” stated Byers. There was a sense of urgency in his voice, “We’re here in Allentown, are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m in the hospital.”

“Perfect, we’re actually parked just outside. Frohike’s been chatting up the parking attendant for half an hour.” Scully could hear Langly laughing in the background.

“Seriously.”

“Yes. Please come as soon as you can.” Byers sounded restless.

“Thank you, I’ll be there soon,” she told Byers as Penny Northern watched her with concern. “I’ll be back soon,” Scully smiled nervously at Penny as she left. Despite her doubts about them having being abducted by aliens, something had definitely happened to these MUFON women and whoever was behind it needed to be brought to justice. With any luck, the Lone Gunmen would have information that could help her do just that.

………………………

Scully was thankful for her lack of height as she crawled into the Lone Gunmen’s cluttered surveillance van. Byers and Langly greeted her as she brushed cheeto crumbs off of a seat and sat down, staring at the computer monitor.

“So agent Scully, have you ever been to a fertility clinic?” Asked Langly.

“We’ve had a few cases involving them. Mulder was really hung up on a werewolf baby about a year ago.” Scully facepalmed at the memory, though she missed Mulder so much that it made her sad.

“How about the Lombard Research Facility?” Byers chimed in.

“I’ve never heard about it. Does this have something to do with whoever was hacking into Betsy Hagopian’s computer?”

“We think so,” Frohike explained as he came back to the van looking slightly mussed. “It was a man named Kurt Crawford who hacked into her computer. Now, we did a bit of digging and found out that he was a member of MUFON and worked at the Lombard Research Facility. This happens to be a fertility clinic, or so it seemed.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at,” Scully raised an eyebrow. She still wasn’t sure exactly what the Lone Gunmen had uncovered, but it was making her increasingly uncomfortable. “Betsy Hagopian’s name was in their records,” Byers looked at her sympathetically, “So was Penny Northern’s and all of the other female MUFON members. And so was-”

“So was mine,” she interrupted, all three of the Lone Gunmen watching her. Their horror mirroring hers. What else had the government taken from her? Scully couldn’t help but feel violated by this discovery. She wasn’t the only one either. And that just made everything worse. “The Lombard Research Facility, where is it?”

“It’s right here in Allentown,” Langly adjusted his glasses, “that’s why we’re here”.

“Well then, looks like we have a long night ahead of us. Let’s go.”

………………………

Scully tiptoed down the hall of the research facility after the Lone Gunmen had disabled the security system. She couldn’t help but be anxious about what she might find inside, even Frohike’s idle chattering about Nancy the parking attendant and the Bigfoot erotica novel she was writing seemed a welcome distraction. For Mulder’s sake she might even purchase a copy if it is ever published.

Looking around, all she saw were hallways. She barely felt like a doctor or even a federal agent, here she felt as much a patient as much as she did at the hospital. Part of something bigger than herself that she never agreed to. She read the names of the facility’s doctors to herself: ‘Oppenheim, Jeffers, Bennett, Austin, Spitz, Scanlon, shit’. “Dr. Scanlon’s name is on here! He’s the doctor who treated all those MUFON members who died...and is still treating Penny Northern. Someone has to go warn her!” Scully whispered frantically.

“Okay,” Byers answered, “I’ll go back to the hospital. The three of you should be okay here.”

“We’ll be fine, go ahead,” Langly assured him.

“Thank you,” Scully told him gratefully. As much as the Lone Gunmen had been Mulder’s friends, she definitely had her own kinship with them. She trusted the three of them with her life at the moment. She continued to walk, her footsteps echoing lightly as she made her way down the hall. Most of the rooms were dark, except for one, she heard voices coming from inside. Scully pulled out her gun, mentally preparing herself from what was inside the room. She assumed it was a lab. Gingerly, her gloved hand turned the knob and opened the door. It was a lab all right, but nothing could have prepared Scully for what she saw in front of her.

Inside the lab were rows and rows of tanks, each with a childlike body moving around in greenish liquid. They looked human, and Scully couldn’t help but feel nauseous. The government was growing what appeared to be human children. They were human, they had to be? Even Scully wasn’t so sure. Tending the tanks were several identical men in lab coats. Clones, they were growing clones. Had Mulder told her this she would have dismissed it but she could not deny the evidence standing in front of her. She took a deep breath and aimed her gun at the men in labcoats.

“Which of you is Kurt Crawford?” Scully demanded.

“Yes,” they replied eerily in unison.

“Mind explaining why you hacked into Betsy Hagopian’s computer?”

“She had information we needed,” one of the clones explained. He approached her as non-threateningly as he could, “it hurts us, what happened to her. What happened to all these women. What is happening to you.”

“And why do you give a wet shit about what is happening to me?” Scully growled, her gun still pointed at the clone’s face. He stroked her cheek and looked down at her with sad eyes.

“You could be my mother.”

“What?” She took a step back.

“Your ova, along with that of many other women such as Betsy Hagopian is part of what has brought us into this world. Come with me,” he led her down a hallway. Scully felt as though she had nothing to lose by following him, “It’s sad to see our mothers suffer as you are. We’ve been trying and trying to find a way to save them. I hope we can find a way to save you.” The clone took her to a storage room, she scanned the vaults until she saw the one with her own name and date of birth. The clone opened it up and handed her a vial. “Rightfully this belongs to you,” she looked at it, it was a vial of her own ova.

“Alright,” she answered, still unable to process everything she had just experienced. She had to get back to Penny Northern, the poor woman deserved the truth. “Guys, let’s get out of here,” Scully informed Langly and Frohike, “We have to go back to the hospital.”

……………………....

The sun was coming up by the time they reached the hospital. Despite a near-fatal shootout with a nondescript government assassin, everyone had escaped intact. Shaken up but determined, Scully ran back into the hospital. Frohike and Langly following right behind her. She had to get to Penny Northern if it was the last thing she ever did. How many times had she been lied to? She was a victim of both her government and her faith in it. Scully had had faith in the system once too. But experience and evidence had proven her wrong. The thought saddened her as she entered Penny’s room. Byers was there, sorrowful as he sat with her. He pulled up a chair for Scully right next to Penny. She was sleeping. She looked painfully innocent and frighteningly weak. Exactly how much had the cancer taken out of her? It frightened Scully to think about. She reached out to hold her hand and breath deeply. Penny’s grip was weak and her hand was cold and bony. She opened her eyes and looked into Scully’s. She smiled gently for a second, but then her eyes slowly closed and Scully could feel Penny’s hand go cold. She was dying. She was dying and Scully never even got a chance to tell her the truth. Hot tears streamed down her face as Penny Northern closed her eyes for good. Before Scully was ready to let go of her. There was nothing she could do anymore, not for her or any of the other MUFON women.

Scully was shaking as she walked out of Penny Northern’s room. She had seen death before, but never her own. As the light faded from Penny’s eyes, Scully felt as though she had just caught a glimpse into her own future. Except that Penny wasn’t an FBI agent searching for justice. Penny Northern was a civilian. An innocent civilian. A pawn in a game she had never asked to play. Scully felt nauseous with horror. A horror that quickly turned to rage. What project was so important to a country that it was worth sacrificing its citizens for? Especially when said citizens had no control or consent over what happened to them. It took everything Scully had not to scream at the injustice of it all. Still crying, she broke down and collapsed screaming in the middle of the hallway. The Lone Gunmen looked down at her awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

“Dana,” Maggie Scully raced down the hall towards her daughter, followed by F.B.I. assistant director Walter Skinner not far behind her.

“Mom,” She got up and hugged her mom, crying in her arms. “I’m scared, I am so scared. I just watched a woman die exactly how I’m going to die,” by this point her mother was bawling too, as were Skinner and all three of the Lone Gunmen. “But she was just a civilian, she didn’t ask for any of this. Every single one of her human rights as a citizen of this country had been violated. Is there no justice in this country? In this world? Penny Northern, and so many other women just like her had so much taken from them. And then they were just left to die alone as if they were nothing.” Her face was white with rage and tears continued to roll down her face.

“But Penny Northern didn’t die alone,” Byers put a hand on her shoulder, “you were there, you cared about her and she knew that.”

“And right now, we’re all here for you.” Langly reassured her.

“You don’t have to die alone and you don’t have to live alone,” Frohike stroked her arm.

“Whatever you need agent Scully, we’ll find a way to help you,” offered Skinner.

“Dana, everybody here loves you. I’m scared for you, but it looks like you’ll always have people with you wherever you go and whatever you do,” Maggie Scully signalled everyone in for a group hug. “What would you like honey?” she asked her daughter.

“Justice,” Scully answered, “I want justice.”


	10. Interludes III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, was very busy with my summer job. I do not own the X-files but enjoy what ifs and as such this fic is still going. All and any feedback is welcome :)

Along with the X-Files division, the Sci-Crime lab was also an area of investigation often looked down on by other FBI agents. In the past, Scully herself would not have thought twice about ordering its agents around. But now, with Mulder gone, she relied on them a bit more than before. There was agent Pendrell of course, with his obvious crush on her, but beneath that a genuine curiosity and desire for justice. It was because of him that she had found the computer chip in her neck. At the moment, Pendrell was still curious about the chip. He was now himself concerned about deeper conspiracies involving the U.S. government. And he wasn’t the only one.

Agent Moreau, who ran the division, had graciously allowed Scully to store the tube containing her ova in one of the lab's freezers. Hidden in plain sight where government officials wouldn’t think to look for it. Moreau was a tall, elegant woman with greying dreadlocks and a low tolerance for bullshit. Her temperament was not unlike Assistant Director Skinner’s, and she was one of the few agents in the bureau that Scully could trust. Because of her name, Agent Moreau refused to read the novel ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ out of sheer spite but was otherwise well-read. She had a memory that rivaled even Mulder’s. As Scully walked down the hall towards the Sci-Crime lab, she hoped to ask the older agent about her experience involving other bizarre cases over the year. X-Files by any other names. 

“Good morning agent Scully.” Agent Pendrell waved enthusiastically at Scully as she walked into the lab. With him were two other agents: a tall man with wavy black hair and glasses, and a short woman wearing a disturbing amount of pink. The taller man nudged Pendrell with his elbow, “There’s actually something we would like to ask you.” Pendrell blushed and the agents behind them grinned nefariously.

“Alright, but do you know where agent Moreau is? I had a few questions I wanted to ask her,” Scully inquired.

“She called in sick today. Apparently her youngest daughter got the stomach flu in daycare and spread it around to the whole family,” Pendrell explained. Agent Moreau had three children: two daughters and a son. 

“I see, hopefully they’ll all get well soon. None of my questions are urgent so I should be back in a few days unless a case comes up. Thank you agent Pendrell-” Scully smiled understandingly. She turned to leave, at least until Pendrell interrupted her.

“Are you busy tonight?” he blurted out.

“Is there a reason why I should be?” Scully raised an eyebrow.

“Well, it’s trivia night at ‘The Dragon’s Hoard’ and Selene, sorry agent Moreau, is a master at trivia. But tonight she can’t come and we need 4-6 people per team. Tonight’s theme is ‘the paranormal’ so who better to ask than you agent Scully, who works on the X-files?” The taller man explained.

“I’m afraid my partner would be more helpful in this regard than I am agent…”

“Cortez, special agent Carlos Cortez.” He smirked.

“Agent Moreau thinks very highly of you. Plus, we would all love to have add another member to our trivia team,” the shorter agent argued. “Also I don’t think we’ve met before, I’m special agent Marina Zhou.” She smiled and shook hands with agent Scully.

“Thank you agents, I really appreciate the offer.” Scully smiled politely at the enthusiastic trio. So different from the Lone Gunmen and yet somehow she felt as though they would get along. In truth, Scully couldn’t remember the last time she went out with friends that weren’t the Lone Gunmen. Maybe socialising with her fellow agents wasn’t such a bad idea. “I would be delighted to come.” Scully smiled. It was a genuine smile.


	11. Kaddish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shows up 15 years late with Starbucks. Hi. Life has been crazy and I wasn't motivated to write angst. Also I got really into Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. If you're still reading this and putting up with me, thank you. Do I own the X-Files? Nope, just my sporadically fanfiction. If you have thoughts or feelings about the story please let me know :)

This wasn’t an X-File. At least as far as Scully was convinced. Skimming over the details of the case, it was true that Isaac Luria’s fingerprints were present on Tony Oliver’s body. His murder was committed after he had helped kill Luria, a Hasidic Jew. Luria’s death was a hate crime. Oliver’s was likely out of revenge, Luria’s fingerprints planted on the body as a means of obscuring the investigation, if not some form of symbolism. Scully supposed she would find out soon enough.

Hate crimes were not an area where Scully had a lot of familiarity in and felt fully comfortable dealing with. She couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a loved one to such a heinous act. Mulder was the profiler, he would have known how to look further into this case. But Mulder wasn’t here and Scully was just doing her job. Every step to the door of Jacob Weiss’s Brooklyn house felt heavier than the last. There was a chill in the air. She felt as though she were an intruder. She knocked nonetheless. 

“Hello,” Weiss answered the door, “can’t you see that we are grieving? Who are you and what is it that you want?”

“Sorry to disturb your Mr. Weiss, my name is special agent Dana Scully. I’m from the FBI and would like to ask you a few questions?”

“Have you found whoever murdered my son-in-law? Are they being brought to justice?”

“Not exactly Mr. Weiss. One of the assailants was found dead. Strangely enough, your son-in-law, Mr. Luria’s fingerprints were found on the body.” Scully explained.

“That’s ridiculous, Isaac is dead!”

“I know, that’s what I’m trying to understand. I came here to ask you for your permission to exhume his grave.”

“Isaac is dead. He was brutally murdered and now you want to desecrate his remains?” His voice was a rough mixture of pain and rage, “for years we’ve been threatened. By people who want to eradicate our community and our culture. And you, keepers of the law have done nothing for us. And now my son-in-law is dead. Leave-”

“Papa, it’s alright,” a woman’s voice interrupted, she walked up to the door and looked up at her father “let them clear my husband’s name,” She then looked at Scully with sad eyes and a heavy heart, “but please, let us mourn in peace.”

“Thank you,” Scully nodded at the woman, presumably Luria’s wife. She nodded back. “I’m sorry for your loss and for this disturbance.” Jacob Weiss closed the door behind her as she left.

It was a gloomy autumn day. Leaves danced elegantly in the wind as Scully walked down the street back to her rental car. She noticed a leaflet. A terribly anti semitic one at that, portraying caricatures of Jewish people and blaming them for the woes of the western world. Perhaps Luria’s killers were behind this and his family would get some sort of justice after all. At least they would find out whose sick joke planting his fingerprints on one of his killers was. As tired as Scully was of being denied justice, she could not imagine the hatred Luria and his family must have encountered on a daily basis. She made a mental note to herself to inform local authorities of these flyers and track whoever was making them as they likely were involved in Luria’s murder and were in danger of being murdered themselves. Were Mulder here she could debate the mundane or divine nature of evil. But without him she could investigate this case.

On the topic of Mulder, Scully knew that nobody had contacted his mother about his whereabouts, or lack thereof. Not that Scully herself knew very much the woman. Mulder rarely spoke to his mother, but she was still his mother, and would at some point deserve closure. For at least one of her children. At some point she knew that she would have to call the woman. And yet, it was something Scully had been putting off for quite some time. But not something she could put off forever. Still, she didn’t feel as though she had enough information to give the poor woman any closure. Scully hardly had any closure for herself.

…………………

Perhaps Jacob Weiss wasn’t wrong in his concern for Isaac Luria’s remains. By the time Scully had arrived, Luria’s grave had already been exhumed. The body was still inside but one of his killers was found dead near the crime scene as well. Local police examined it as Scully made her way over to Luria. He was dead yes, and thus unable to have killed those boys. The only unusual thing about the body was the writing on one of his hands. Four Hebrew letters. Alongside the body was a book, also in Hebrew. 

Calling over one of the crime scene photographers, Scully instructed him to photograph the letters and the book for further reference before they sealed up the grave again. Once the pictures were developed, she would be able to take them to a religious scholar for more insight if necessary. Scully doubted it would be but it was useful to cover her bases. All evidence that needed to be gathered was gathered. But she left the book, unaware of its religious significance. Again, she doubted its relevance to the case. It’s not like it was about to burst into flames or anything.

Mulder would have taken the book. He would have had some sort of gut feeling and followed it like a bloodhound follows a scent. Though Scully’s intuition didn’t govern her actions as Mulder’s did, she did have her own gut feeling about this case. And that feeling was, against her better judgement, to let it be.

…………………………..

Her second walk up to Jacob Weiss’s front door was more painful than the first. She had news, sure, but was not sure if it was good or bad or how Weiss and his daughter would react. Again, she knocked solemnly on the door.

This time it was Ariel who answered and let Scully in. Her eyes were worn out and her smile tired. Clearly her life had been torn apart by the loss of her husband. And yet, there was a serenity about her, one born of exhaustion and acceptance. Maybe she knew something, maybe she did not.

“We exhumed your husband’s body and made sure that he was buried properly. He was still there, there’s no way he could have killed those boys?” Scully explained.

“Boys. I thought you said there was only one body?” Ariel raised an eyebrow. She was clearly deep in thought.

“There was another murder. Same fingerprints. But your husband was not involved in any way. I thought you should know that. I’m terribly sorry for what you’re going through,” Scully fought back tears. Such a senseless murder, but at least there was a body to bury. Scully had no idea if she would ever get any closure in regards to her own partner. It was hard not to make the case personal.

“I understand,” Ariel got up, “come with me”. 

Scully followed her through the house and up the stairs. Ariel led her into a room and stood in front of a table. On the table, in a glass case was a ring. It was a lovely ring, silver in colour with a tall and ornate castle carved into it. 

“My father was an apprentice to a jeweler,” Ariel informed her, “her grew up in a little village, near Prague. He helped to make this ring.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It was very special to the village. Every woman who got married in the synagogue wore this ring on her wedding day. To symbolise being a queen in her own home. That synagogue doesn’t exist anymore. Not after the Nazi’s came and destroyed my father’s entire community. No more queens or castles, only death and destruction. The only reason we still have this is because my father hid it, and smuggled the ring out when he came to America. For years he refused to talk about it. Too many memories. But when he found out that I was going to get married to Isaac,” Ariel wiped tears from her eyes. Scully handed her one of the kleenexes she kept for her increasingly frequent nosebleeds. “It was going to be my wedding ring, dad said that it was as though his village were alive again. You know, Isaac and I were legally married but today, today was supposed to be our wedding day. But he’s dead, because of the same people who wiped my father’s village off the map. They’re back, if they ever left. This is what they do. And no one ever stops them.” Ariel continued to sob. Scully took a deep breath. She was beginning to suspect that Ariel herself might be out for revenge. And understandably, after being denied justice from the authorities time and time again. An eternal senseless betrayal with no end in sight. It was sickening to think about.

“Thank you for your time. I’m so sorry, for everything you and your family have been through.” Ariel nodded sadly and Scully made her way to the door. She took a deep breath and made a choice. One she might not have made were Mulder present: handing over the investigation. Local law enforcement had all the evidence and resources to deal with this case. Scully would sign the paperwork and it would be their responsibility. Not hers, she was no longer objective. This time she was trusting her gut and that meant letting this case go.

………………………………….

New York was melancholy in the rain. Looking out the window of the deli she entered on a whim, Scully watched the downpour outside. She watched the greyness and the lightning and heard the rumbling of the thunder and the aggressive tapping of raindrops on the pavement. There was a beauty in it that Scully could not quite put into words.

She watched the steam rise from her matzo ball soup, still too hot to eat comfortably. Scully had never had matzo ball soup before, but remembered Mulder mentioning his grandmother making it once a year. His mother’s parents was Jewish and held on to some of the old traditions. His mother however tried to shed her identity and refused to pass them on to her children, something Mulder resented deeply. He once mentioned, on one of their overnight stakeouts that he felt as though he was missing something culturally, as though he had only the faintest of memories of his own family traditions, and that they felt as though they never truly belonged to him. It haunted him. Almost as much as his sister’s abduction. Somehow though, it was easier for him to talk about flying saucers and Bigfoot as opposed to cultural trauma and a lingering sense of alienation. 

Scully swirled her spoon in the broth and took a sip. Homemade chicken broth, flavoured with dill, carrots, celery, and onions. It was delicious. She poked at the matzoh ball, then cut it into pieces with her spoon. It was soft and fluffy, a comforting texture. Despite being nearly tasteless on its own, it absorbed the flavour of the chicken broth. Nourishing was the word to describe it. Scully continued to eat, enjoying every bite of the new experience.

There was a reason such a soup survived for generations. A shared act of comfort, to help absorb the trauma of history. Both were made to be shared, food and trauma. In some ways, they were the cornerstones of many cultures. Or so Scully thought looking down at her empty bowl. She felt replenished, stronger even. Strong enough to call Mulder’s mother and tell her what had happened to her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always liked the Jewish Mulder headcannon. Also, while I've had plenty of matzo ball soup in my life, I've yet to go to New York.


	12. Unrequited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! Officially I have a masters degree and if you're still reading thank you for your patience. As always I do not own the X-Files and as always comments are more than welcome.

Scully stared uncomfortably at the files in front of her. Most of the cases she and Mulder investigated were forgotten and deemed irrelevant by the higher ups of the FBI. But not today. Today Skinner had brought her in as one of the agents investigating the murder of a senior military official.

Lieutenant-General Peter McDougal had been murdered in his own vehicle, shot at point blank range. His driver, the only suspect, claimed to be innocent and there was no evidence of him having committed the crime. The only evidence found at the crime scene was a card with a skull on the back. Specifically, the king of hearts. The timing of this murder could not have been worse, as one of the war memorials in the city was scheduled to be re-dedicated. To prevent further disruptions, Skinner had gathered his best agents, Scully included, in order to solve the murder as quickly and discreetly as possible.

As Mulder was still MIA, Skinner brought agent Moreau, the de-facto section chief of the Sci-Crime lab, in for her forensics experience. While the Sci-Crime lab hadn’t had a section chief responsible for them in over three years, the upper management was hesitant to promote anyone. This was in spite of the fact that agent Moreau was already doing the job without the title or benefits. No matter how useful they were to the rest of the bureau, the agents of the Sci-Crime lab was given little, if any more respect, then she and Mulder received for their work on the X-Files. Lately Scully had begun to feel a kinship with its agents, often eating lunch with them and even joining them for trivia nights on a regular basis. It was nice to have people in the bureau that she could be friendly with. 

Scully watched Moreau take notes as Skinner explained the connection between the suspected driver and a group of right-wing extremists known as ‘The Right Hand’. The group had a history of violence and a hatred of the military. Their leader Danny Markham, was himself a former marine who had grown disenchanted with his country. Scully bit her lip and rubbed her eyes as the other agents at the table chatted and went off. It was going to be a long day.

“What do you think of Markham?” she asked agent Moreau who was still staring at his file.

“I think he’s a scared old white man who thrives on trumpeting his opinions to other scared old white men.”

“There is no shortage of white men with fragile egos,” Scully peered down the hall as Moreau suppressed a laugh.

“Strength in numbers.” Moreau added as she and Scully walked up to the assistant director.

“Indeed. Still I think he needs to be brought in.”  
“Absolutely,” Moreau nodded.

“Any questions agents?” Skinner asked. He looked as though he had had a rough night.

“Yes actually, do you know if there are any outstanding warrants on Mr. Markham?”

“Several warrants agent Scully, but he’s the subject of numerous ongoing investigations. We’ve been watching him closely.”

“Thank you assistant director, but I believe it would be beneficial to bring him in for questioning. If he isn’t responsible for the murder, he may know something about the people who are. Let us serve a warrant.” Skinner paused for a moment before answering her.

“Okay. But proceed with caution, he has more allies than we know and the last thing we want is for this scumbag to crawl back into the woodpile.”

“Understood.” Scully and Moreau nodded and headed out.

………………………………..

“You’re not planning on taking one of those things home, are you?” Moreau raised an eyebrow as Scully looked at the (now crated) Rottweilers that had charged them when they had first entered Markham’s compound. Thankfully the SWAT team had subdued the animals and they had been able to enter the compound without too much difficulty.

“No, just thinking about how much I miss mine.” Out of the corner of her eye Scully watched the dog at the end of the row pawing at its crate. She went over and scratched its ears through the bars.

“You had a dog agent Scully?”

“A Pomeranian named Queequeg. He got eaten by an alligator on a case. That dog was so much like Mulder and they hated each other,” Scully explained. The dog in the cage tilted its head and perked up its ears. Moreau rolled her eyes.

“Understandable. And there he is.” Markham emerged from his lair, he looked calmer than a man in his situation had any right to be. Moreau grimaced and crossed her arms, unlike Scully she was tall enough to look intimidating. Scully pulled the warrant out of her coat pocket.

“Mr. Markham, we have a warrant to be here. We need to go through the mailing list for your...organization,” explained Moreau. Scully could tell she was stiff and ready to pull her gun out at any moment.

“It’s a long list agents, not everyone is as fond of good old uncle Sam as you are,” he laughed, “but go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

“Does this,” Scully pulled out the card found on Lieutenant-General McDougal’s body, “mean anything to you?” 

“You know, there will come a day where the Right Hand and the rest of our allies will rise up and take back the organizations that have suffocated our nation into complacency. But today is not that day,” Markham boasted, “I know that card. That’s Teager’s card.”

“Teager?” Scully asked.

“Nathaniel Teager. Fought in Vietnam and credited with tens, if not dozens of kills. Officially dead, left behind in the 70’s after being shot down but,” he pulled a photograph out of his jacket. It was of Markham with another man, supposedly Teager, “we found him a few years ago. We were liberating a POW camp and brought him home. The government wasn’t too thrilled about that, they kept trying to kidnap him.”

“And did they?” Moreau watched Markham, suspiciously as ever.

“Not that I know. But here’s the thing, Teager disappeared. None of us have seen him since. No one has.”

“Okay.” Moreau nodded as they walked away. Scully still watching the dogs out of the corner of her eye.

“Do you believe him? That this Nathaniel Teager is our prime suspect?” Scully wondered.

“Honestly, I want to call bullshit but I’m going to call Pendrell first to look into Teager. If there is evidence in this case, I trust my team to find it.”

“Alright, I’ll update Skinner on what we’ve learned.”

“See you in DC.” 

And with that, Moreau walked off to her car. Going back to her own, Scully took one last look at the dogs. Markham had a lot of dogs. The dog at the end of the row pawed at the crate and looked up at her hopefully. Surely, he wouldn’t miss just one dog. ‘I’m going to call you Pip’, Scully smiled as she loaded the heavy crate into the back of her car. If Mulder were here he would either be impressed or horrified with her actions. She took a detour on her way back to work, dropping the dog off at her apartment.

………………………  
“According to official army records Nathaniel Teager is officially dead,” Moreau informed Scully over the phone as she sat in a hospital waiting room. 

“How conclusive was the evidence? We had a witness. A woman by the name of Mrs. Davenport. She claimed to have not only seen Teager at the Vietnam memorial, but had her late husband’s dog tags handed back to her by him. She’s holding them as we speak.”

“I examined his remains.”

“Anything of interest Moreau?”

“Yeah, the cause of death was labelled inconclusive and all they found was three teeth.”

“Seriously?”

“Dead. Certificate was signed by a General John Steffan, God forbid he ever spends a day in a dentist’s office,” Scully could practically hear Moreau rolling her eyes over the phone.

“Any reason to think General Steffan is in danger?”

“Yes. I told Skinner and he sent some agents to the Pentagon. Pendrell said he found something interesting so I’m on my way back to the office. How about you agent Scully?”

“I’m at the hospital with Mrs. Davenport, her eye was bleeding after she reported seeing Teager. She also claimed he vanished after seeing him.”

“What caused the bleeding.”

“Floating blind spot. The cause is unknown but these things are not unheard of.”

“I trust your medical opinion. Come back as soon as you can, we have the pieces and together I think we can solve the puzzle.”

…………………….

By the time Scully go back to Washington there had been another murder. General Steffan had been shot in his office. Another card with a skull on the back. Teager.

The bureau was unsurprisingly a flurry of activity with agents running about in all direction. At least three agents ran into Scully on her way to the Sci-Crime lab. Agents Moreau, Pendrell, Zhou, and Cortez were waiting and had pulled up a chair for her. She greeted them and sat down as Pendrell poured everyone coffee.

“Mind if I join you?” Assistant Director Skinner walked in, looking even more exhausted than he had in the morning, “You’re the only agents to make progress on this case.”

“In other words, water is wet,” Moreau got Skinner an extra chair while Pendrell poured him a cup of coffee.

“Thank you, have you found anything new?” he said as he sat down.

“I know who Teager’s next target is,” Pendrell answered grimly, taking a swig from his own mug.

“Okay.” Skinner watched Pendrell who looked as though he wanted to crawl under the table.

“I did some digging, and as it turns out Steffan and McDougal were connected.”

“Connected with who?” asked Scully.

“Connected with one Major General Bloch. You see, these three men were not only part of a three-man commission, but they were facing charges.”

“Charges about what Pendrell?” Moreau poured herself another cup of coffee.

“Abandoned prisoners of war in Vietnam. Abandoned American soldiers.” The room went silent and Skinner looked as though he were about to throw up. Scully wondered if he was reliving some of his own worst memories from his military days.

“Major General Bloch is scheduled as a speaker for the re-dedication of the Vietnam memorial,” Cortez added, “Teager probably knows that too.”

“So, we know when he’s going to strike. But do we know how? It’s no easy task to break into the Pentagon.”

“Good point agent Scully. We know what Teager’s trying to do, we just need to figure out how and why.” A moment of silence followed Skinner’s words. Agent Zhou bit her lip nervously.

“I have a bad feeling about this case assistant director.”

“How so agent Zhou?”

I feel as though we were set up to fail,” she confessed. Much to the confusion of her fellow agents, “I know it sounds ridiculous but do you think that this omission is something the US military wants resolved? There’s been very little press coverage, everything was internal. They want to discredit us while maintaining their public appearance. At least that’s my impression of it. I don’t really have any evidence at the moment to back it up but whatever happens, we need to be careful.” Somehow Zhou’s words made sense. At least to Scully. If nothing else, Mulder would have believed her.

“Alright, but what do we do now?” asked Cortez. Skinner’s head looked as though it was about to explode.

“Our jobs,” he answered, “we do our jobs.”

…………………….

In the end, Skinner told the military about Bloch being the next target but none of Zhou’s concerns. No changes were made to the rededication ceremony except for the FBI agents in the audience searching for Teager. Skinner was there, as were Scully, Moreau, and Cortez. And so, they waited. Scully could practically hear Moreau’s nervous breaths and the tension hung over them like a storm cloud. It was calm. Until Scully spotted Teager near Bloch’s car. Until she didn’t. He had disappeared again.

Skinner had tried to reason with the major general but he insisted on speaking. Bloch was a stubborn man. More stubborn than Skinner who looked abysmal. Zhou’s concerns echoed in their ears. Neither Teager, Bloch, nor the rest of the military could be reasoned with. Skinner was right. All they could do was the job they were hired for. 

“I see him,” Cortez warned. The agents sprang into action.

“He’s making his way to the stage.” Scully added, chasing him through the crowd. There was screaming and chaos.

Amidst it all, Skinner pulled Bloch aside as everyone else ran backstage. Scully ran towards them as fast as she could. Trailing behind as Skinner lead Bloch back to his car. They were not alone. Of course, they were not alone.

Teager had been waiting for him in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. He had a gun. Skinner pushed Bloch aside as he pulled the trigger. Skinner was bleeding. Scully called for an ambulance as Teager disappeared again. Moreau was a good shot and he appeared once again with a bullet wound. Teager repeated his name, rank, and service number over and over and over again. Scully knew that soldiers were taught to do that when they were being tortured. Teager had been tortured. As he bled out and the light gradually left his eyes, Nathaniel Teager was tortured no more.

The rest of the day was a blur.

…………………….  
Officially, the military released their report the next day. Skinner decided to meet Scully and Moreau at the Vietnam memorial in order to discuss it. Despite the stress of the week, Scully was otherwise happy as Pip was settling in well at her apartment and she had scheduled a vet appointment for the dog later in the week. She both doubted and hoped that Markham neither noticed the dog’s absence nor missed her. She suppressed a smile walking up to Skinner and Moreau, knowing both of them would chastising her for her actions.

“What’s the word on Teager?” she inquired. 

“The word Scully is that there was no Teager. According to the military it was a member of the Right Hand known as Thomas Lynch responsible for the shootings.” Skinner somehow managed to look even more tired than the day before.

“What a load of bullshit.” Moreau crossed her arms in disgust.

“We did everything within our power to solve the murders and we did. If they set us up to fail it was only partially effective.”

“Alright assistant director, but as a veteran from Vietnam does none of this bother you?”

“As a veteran from Vietnam I know what the American military is capable of. What do you expect me to do agent Moreau?” 

“Keep searching. Teager’s likely just a drop in the bucket, there has to be more to the story. More secrets. More innocent victims. It could have easily been you in his shoes. Remember that.”

“Sometimes I wish I could forget.” Skinner lamented and stared blankly at the memorial. Moreau put a hand on his shoulder, sharing a moment of silence in empathy. 

After a minute, Scully checked her phone. She had one new message. It read: Same place as last time, SRSG. Covarrubias. Scully excused herself and left for the cafe.

……………………….

“Lemon poppy seed muffins are always a good choice,” commented Marita Covarrubias as she sat next to Scully in the back of the cafe. It had been a long time since she had seen Mulder’s informant. Both too long and not long enough.

“Mulder always liked them, though not as much as he liked chocolate chip ones. Surprisingly though, bran muffins are his favorite.”

“Personally, I prefer blueberry,” she took a sip of her cappuccino before slowly stirring more sugar in as though she had all the time in the world. Somehow the woman always found a way of testing Scully’s patience.

“So, how is New York?” she asked, attempting to make small talk.

“Busy as ever, though I did get an interesting phone call the other day from a friend of mine in Russia,” Covarrubias answered, cryptically as ever. 

“What kind of friend?” Scully had a headache. She just wanted to get home to her dog. Covarrubias blushed slightly, avoiding the question. “Never mind, spare me the details.” She had overheard enough of Mulder’s phone calls to 1-900 numbers for a lifetime.

“Mulder’s alive Scully. He’s still in Siberia.” Scully spat out her coffee at the news. “Trust me on this.”

“You know that I want to trust you. Do you have any evidence?” It took all her strength not to burst into tears.

“These pictures were faxed to me yesterday morning,” Covarrubias handed her a manila folder. 

Scully opened the folder. The pictures were of a Siberian prison camp. There were pictures of men mining and of guards on duty. Some men were on horses and towards the corner was a truck. Two men were talking inside. One of the men she couldn’t recognize but the other was definitely Mulder staring right, perhaps knowingly at the camera. 

“Do you know when these photographs were taken?” Scully asked and looked up. The informant had gone. ‘Mulder, where are you and what have you done?’ she wondered. It was time to pay the Lone Gunmen a visit.


	13. Interludes IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still reading this, I cannot thank you enough. I do not own the X-Files, just this AU. I now have an endgame for this story and I think I'm just under/around halfway through. All and any feedback is more than welcome.

“I can’t believe you stole a dog from a known terrorist,” Skinner shook his head in disbelief as he checked Mulder’s apartment for bugs. Pip made herself comfortable on Mulder’s couch, panting happily but still keeping her eyes on the Indian takeout Skinner had brought over from the Punjab Palace. Nevertheless, once finished he sat on the couch beside her and scratched behind her ears.

“I don’t think Markham noticed, what’s going to do? Track down a dying woman?” Scully held a tissue to her nose, she was having yet another nosebleed, “besides, she likes you.” Pip pawed at Skinner as she rolled over so he could give her a belly rub. Scully shook some fish flakes into Mulder’s tank. So far all his fish were still alive.

“If anyone asks, I didn’t know about it.” Skinner tried to sound stern, but was too busy smiling at and petting the dog to be convincing.

“Thanks Skinner, the basement office has been lonely without Mulder. I also miss Queequeg.”

“Queequeg?” 

“I adopted a pomeranian last year. He was a nice dog, even though Mulder didn’t like him. Poor thing got eaten by an alligator when we were on a case.” Scully finished setting the table as soon as her nosebleed had ended. Pip’s ears perked up and she started barking. She jumped off the couch and ran to the door. Hearing a knock, Scully opened it. 

“Shit Scully, when did you get a dog?” Langly asked, reaching his arm out for Pip to sniff. All three Lone Gunmen walked into the apartment.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Skinner answered gruffly, dragging himself off of the couch.

“Her name’s Pip,” Scully explained, “don’t worry she’s friendly, My mom loves her.”

“She’s huge! You could ride her into battle!” Frohike suggested, closing Mulder’s door behind him. Scully couldn’t help but smile at the idea as they sat down to dinner. Pip sat between Byers and Frohike who both fed her occasional bits of food. Trust a dog to know who was most likely to give her table scraps.

“So Scully, you mentioned something about some photographs you received.” Byers inquired, popping a pakora in his mouth.

“Yes,” she pulled them out of Covarrubias manilla folder, “I need you to look at these. Just make sure your hands are clean.” Scully passed the photographs around the table. The previous chatter turner to dead silence for a moment.

“Well, these look pretty real.” Langly broke the silence.

“This means Mulder’s alive and in Siberia, at least as of last week when these pictures were taken,” Byers added

“Agent Scully, where did you get these?” Skinner’s face looked a bit green with shock as he stared at the photographs.

“Mulder’s latest informant. One Marita Covarrubias who works for the United Nations. She’s the one who got Mulder and Krycek plane tickets to Russia.” Scully speared a piece of cauliflower in frustration, “She’s helping me now but I don’t trust her.”

“If both men went to Siberia together, how come Krycek isn't in any of the pictures?” Skinner asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what happened to him. He could have been the one to have taken the pictures for all I know,” Scully suggested. For some reason her intuition told her this was the case.

“If that’s true, that means he’s probably working either for or with your informant.” Langly tossed Pip a piece of naan.

“That’s what I’m worried about. I hope you don’t mind, but maybe by investigating Covarrubias we’ll find something that can lead us to Mulder.”

“Sure thing Scully. Believe it or not, we miss Mulder as much as much as you do.” Frohike smiled.

“So far there’s no news from the higher ups at the FBI. They’ve stopped talking about the X-Files. But they’ve seen your medical records Scully and they know you’re sick. They know you’re dying,” Skinner confessed.

“Then they’ll know I have nothing to lose.” Scully announced. The nosebleed had long ended but her head still ached. It was becoming increasingly clear that she couldn’t bide her time forever. At some point she’d have to pick fights with some very powerful people. Mulder would be proud of her, for now, her work on the X-Files was his legacy. But it was also her own. And dying or not, she had work to do.


End file.
